The Bangladesh Cricket Board(BCB) is issuing a show-cause notice to Test and Twenty20 skipper Shakib Al Hasan after he made a deal with a telecom company, violating the terms and conditions of the board.
BCB president Nazmul Hasan said that they will take strict action if he is unable to provide a satisfactory reply. Grameenphone, the local telecom giants, announced on October 22 that the country’s leading all-rounder joined them as their brand ambassador to inspire and build an empowered digital society.
Both the parties inked the deal a day after the country’s cricketers called for a strike placing an 11-point demand to the board. The strike eventually ended on October 23. According to BCB’s players’ agreement, a cricketer under national contract cannot join a telecom company.
“He cannot make this agreement [with a telecom company] and why he cannot make this agreement is clearly stated in our contract paper,” BCB president Nazmul Hasan told Bengali daily Kalerkantho on Saturday (October 26)
“Robi [Telecom] was our title sponsor and Grameenphone did not bid and instead they grabbed few cricketers by paying them TK One or Two Crores. What happened in the end? The board lost TK 90 Crores in three years,” he said.
“Some professionals earned but the board had to undergo suffering. It cannot happen. So they are informed about it on paper. I think even from the ministry they are told not to do any agreement with the telecom company without informing them while it is there in our contract paper. Then how come he does this agreement without informing us. And look at the timing. It was done when there was no cricket [due to strike]. Look at the audacity,” he said.
“We are going into legal action. We cannot spare anyone in this regard. We will ask for compensation. We will seek compensation from the company as well as from the player. I heard about it [on October 23] and asked to sent legal notice to Grameenphone to claim compensation. I asked to send a letter to Shakib for an explanation. We must give him a chance to show he didn’t break the rule. To us, it seemed that it was something like ‘give a damn to the board’ and if that is the case we will take tough action,” he added.
BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury told a news agency that they were not aware of this deal with Grameenphone though every cricketer under national contract must take permission from the board for their commercials.
“‘We were not aware of his [Shakib’s] deal with Grameenphone,” said Nizamuddin. “Usually what happens is we don’t encourage players to have any commercial dealings with a company that can have conflict with the national sponsors,” said Nizamuddin.
“at present, we have Unilever as our team sponsors but the deal is supposed to end soon. If any of our players are endorsing any telecom company, then the other telecom companies will not be interested to bid for the national team when our present deal is over with Unilever,” he said.
Ahead of the World Cup, national opener Tamim Iqbal was approached by one telecom giant to endorse them for a mammoth price of TK Three Crores but he was refused by the board as top officials stated that they are not going to compromise in this regard.
